Time again for our weekly distro release roundup. There’s a lot of small and specialized distros in this week’s list, so let’s get started.

March 16

• K-DEMar Linux Lyra 4.8 Based on Debian, K-DEMar Linux Lyra 4.8 is a Spanish and Catalan language based live CD distro. The latest version has several new additions, but the release announcement is entirely in Spanish, so unless you are fluent, you’re better off checking out DistroWatch.com’s summary here.

March 17

• OpenGEU 8.10 OpenGEU 8.10 is an Ubuntu based distribution using the Enlightenment DR17 window manager. While not a major release, this Live CD is considered a preview of the upcoming “Quarto di Luna” release. New features include an improved theme-manager, custom e17 settings manager, upgrade manager, Echomorph (for Compiz-like desktop effects), and more. Full release notes here.

March 18

• Igelle PC/Desktop v0.6.0 Igelle PC/Desktop is a very simple distro built from the ground-up (not derivative of any other distributions). Igelle aims to be portable and work on various hardware including desktops, laptops, netbooks, mobile phones, etc and is designed to be cross-compiled and cross-configured using tools from the Igelle Project including Melas – an uncomplicated build and packaging tool used to compile software and create installable package files, Ige – a simple, uncomplicated but powerful package manager application, and Barpanel – a themeable desktop panel with plugins based on Foopanel. For more information check out their download page here.

March 19

• Scientific Linux 5.3 Scientific Linux is a distribution co-developed by Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and aims to provide 100% compatibility with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The latest 5.3 release adds improved wireless along with a large amount of other improvements. Check the full release notes for all the gory details, or head straight to the release announcement for download links.

March 20

• UTUTO 2009 Another release announcement in Spanish, UTUTO is an Argentinian developed Gentoo-based distro. New features for 2009 include support for Apple MacBook and Mac mini laptops; support for ASUS Eee PC and MSI Wind netbooks; support for GPRS and 3G network connections; Linux kernel 2.6.28.1 with improved hardware detection and better suspend and hibernation support; modified the graphics rendering algorithm for the X server in order to improve performance; improved detection of video cards with support for graphics acceleration; and various minor improvements in the boot system and graphical installer. Check the link for the release notes (again, in Spanish) or visit the download page directly.

March 21

• Parsix GNU/Linux 2.0 Based on Debian’s testing branch, Parsix 2.0 ships a brand new kernel based on Linux 2.6.26.8, with extra patches and drivers, the live CD compression system has been upgraded to version 3.4 which brings higher compression rate, Unionfs is default for live CD mode, several bugs have been fixed and several packages updated. Highlights: GNOME 2.24.3, GNU Iceweasel 3.0.7, GParted 0.4.3, Pidgin 2.4.3, OpenOffice.org 2.4.1, Compiz-Fusion 0.7.8, VirtualBox-OSE 2.1.4, GNU Flash Player 0.8.4 and xFarDic 0.11.5. Check the link above for the release announcement or click here for the full release notes.

March 22

• NetBSD 5.0 RC3 On NetBSD’s 16th birthday, Soren Jacobsen announced the availability of the third release candidate for their upcoming 5.0 releases. Changes since RC2 include considerable improvements to WAPBL; further X.Org refinements, including switching sgimips to X.Org; scheduler activations support is now disabled by default in sysctl.conf; ddb.onpanic is now set to 1 in the kernel by default, but 0 in sysctl.conf – this avoids trying to dump if a crash occurs during the install phase; puffs is now enabled by default on amd64, i386, macppc, and sparc64; SSP kernels should work again; and a handful of assorted stability improvements. Check the link above for the entire release announcement and download information.
• Zenwalk GNOME 6.0 The GNOME edition of Zenwalk 6.0 is now available. Shipping with the new GNOME 2.26.0, Zenwalk GNOME has a lightweight version of OpenOffice 3.0.1 and features faster boot (tuned init scripts, with realtime I/O scheduler); new Zenpanel with integrated Disk Manager, Wifi and Wired Network Manager; gksu keyring based desktop granting system; PAM authentication has been added to the system; new Netpkg with orphan dependencies and “offline operation” support; Exaile music; Gthumb has replaced gqview and gtkam for viewing images and importing them from your camera; the lighting PIM extension for icedove is installed by default; new artwork; and a simplified installer. For more information, check out the release announcement here.
• Frugalware Linux 1.0 (Anacreon) Another distro aimed at simplicity, Frugalware claims their focus also adds multimedia and design. Changes since 0.9 include support for ASUS Eee PC models; new PPC port (though security support will not be available for this architecture in this release cycle due to lack of resources); support for having a 32-bit chroot on x86_64; having ‘/boot’ on a RAID1 device is now supported; gService, a new graphical tool for enabling and disabling services; Java plugin on x86_64; support for the ext4 file system. Full release announcement here.